Short Cuts: A Guide to Oaths, Ring Tones, Ransom Notes, Famous Last Words, and Other Forms of Minimalist Communication

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Our everyday lives are inevitably touched--and immeasurably enriched--by an extraordinary variety of miniature forms of verbal communication, from classified ads to street signs, and from yesterday's graffito to tomorrow's headline. Celebrating our long history of compact speech, Short Cuts offers a well-researched and vibrantly written account of this unsung corner of the linguistic world, inspiring a new appreciation of the wondrously varied forms of our briefest exchanges. Alexander Humez, Nicholas Humez, and Rob Flynn shed light here on an ever-growing field of minimalist genres, ranging from the bank robbery note to the billboard, from the curse hurled from a car window (or the Senate floor) to the suicide note, and from the ghost-word to the ring tone. The book is divided into ten thematic sections, as varied as qIn the Dictionaryq (discussing such topics as Sniglets, Mountweazels, and the Wiktionary), qIn and Out of Troubleq (error messages, weasel words, the pre-nup), and qOn the Lamq (ransom notes, wanted posters, portraits parles). The authors look at the comic strip's maladicta balloon and the dinner-interrupter's robocalls, the advice column and the obit, and the many ways your personal appearance tells us who you are, from the message on your gimme cap to the tattoo with your S.O.'s name on your ankle. Uncovering the elegance, the humor, and the unspoken implications in these fleeting communications, this book provides a satisfying thoroughness and an abundance of connections that unravel how the oath became the swearword and the calling card salver turned into the Facebook wall. For readers who love language and enjoy rummaging through the cultural baggage that comes with it, Short Cuts gathers an engaging sampler of the most delightful and cogent--and above all brief--forms of contemporary English.... 53 Lotus Eaters, 204 Louis the German, 53 Louis the Pious, 53 Louis XV, king
of France, 73 Love (epistolary closer), 221 aThe Lower Casea ... See also e-mail
Christmas cards and epistles-general, 191 closing expressions, 221 delivery,
183a87 gender relations and, ... 64 Ma Ine Is, 240 manslaughter, 56 Manual on
Uniform Traffic Control Devices (U.S. Dept. of Transportation), 7a8 aMan Who
Neveranbsp;...

Title

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Short Cuts: A Guide to Oaths, Ring Tones, Ransom Notes, Famous Last Words, and Other Forms of Minimalist Communication

Author

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Alexander Humez, Nicholas Humez, Rob Flynn

Publisher

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Oxford University Press - 2010-07-15

ISBN-13

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